Utility Distribution Investment Planning (UDIP) will be a transparentprocess in which the utilities are held accountable for investing inways that meet coordinated State goals.

Insteadof reactive planning on a case-by-case basis, the utilities will stepback and create a plan, then build deliberately for the future distributiongrid.

Byanticipating advanced capabilities in future upgrades, new technologywill be far faster and easier to incorporate and cost less for consumers,developers and the State.

Recent documents from the CEC and Southern California Edisonreflect the growing acceptance of this vision of the grid.

SCE’sreport from May of 2012notesthat overall grid upgrade costs will becut by more than half, and transmission investments will be reduced bymore than two-thirds, if DG siting is based on a ‘guided’ planning process.

Therecent workshop on climate change adaptation at the energycommission highlighted the importance of a smart grid and locating energygeneration very close to load in mitigating the impacts of extreme weatherevents.

Making Clean Local Energy Accessible Now

19

Data Availability is Improving

More D-grid informationis being made accessiblethrough improvedinterconnection maps

But,improved

information does notnecessarily

translateinto transparentupgrade assessments

Data in maps must berelevant to howinterconnection studiesareperformed